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Deaths from suicide in the UK rose slightly from 6,122 deaths in 2014 to 6,188 deaths in 2015 with a subsequent increase in the rate from 10.8 to 10.9 deaths per 100,000 population according to the latest release from the ONS.

Girlguiding turns to social media – and Unilad – to expose everyday sexism.

Girlguiding has used negative commentary from media personalities to highlight the everyday sexism that women still suffer in a new video designed to challenge outdated perceptions and to encourage people to see the charity in a more modern light.

#ForTheGirl has been launched in the light of research by the charity that found 70 per cent of 11 to 21-year-old girls believe sexism is so widespread it affects most areas of their lives. The film and campaign directly target women aged 25 to 34, both as role models for the charity’s young members and as a key demographic for future volunteers and parents of girls who might join the charity. The campaign will be aired through a number of channels, including Unilad’s Facebook page.

“#ForTheGirl highlights the level of sexism and inequality girls face in their day-to-day lives and through the mainstream media, and reminds them that they don’t have to accept it,” said Becky Hewitt, communications director at Girlguiding.

“We are calling on everyone to join girls in challenging sexism whenever and wherever they see it to build a fair future for girls everywhere.”

You may feel as though Halloween has a much higher profile these days than in the past, and there is evidence from Mintel and Conlumino (retail analysts) that sales of Halloween products have increased substantially.

But data from the ONS retail sales bulletin shows that the percentage of annual retail spending taking place in October has stayed steady since 1986 (at around 8.4%).

If you do not want to be disturbed by trick or treaters this Halloween, download and print out a copy of the “No Trick Or Treat” poster by Hampshire Constabulary to display by your front door.

Every year Hampshire Constabulary’s force control room receives calls from people who have been frightened or disturbed by trick or treaters in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Some advice for the elderly or vulnerable members of our community staying home this Halloween:

If you do not know who is calling at your house, you do not need to open the door.

Try to see who is at the door by looking through a spy hole or window before opening the door.

If you have a chain on your door – keep this in place when opening the door.

If you feel threatened in your home, please contact the police.

Police advice to children and their parents is to be mindful that some of the more vulnerable or elderly members of the community do not wish to participate in Halloween activities and in fact may feel intimidated by groups of people calling at their doors.

Hampshire Constabulary has prepared some advice for children and their parents:

If your child is going outside in a costume – make sure they are wearing reflective clothing or add reflective tape to their clothes.

Carry a torch and consider road safety at all times.

If your child is going out trick or treating – make sure they go out in a group, preferably accompanied by an adult.

Older children should let you know where they are going and what time they will be back.

Children should carry a mobile phone in a pocket or bag.

Make sure your children know not to enter anyone’s house or to accept lifts from strangers.

… In order for us to address sexting in a realistic way with teens, we must first understand the sexual culture they live in that normalizes sexting.

1. Teens think everyone is sexting and it’s no big deal.

2. Boys and girls engage in sexting for different reasons. Girls feel pressure to send sexts and are more likely to do so than boys. Boys feel more pressure to collect sexts and are more likely to receive sexts and share them with friends or post them online than girls. This poses an issue because it sets up a type of marketplace, where the boys are the consumers and the girls are the products to be consumed …

3. The sexual double standard is alive and well in sexting. We think nothing of a boy requesting a nude image or video, but when a girl participates, we think something is wrong with her …

4. Sexting can be a sign of self-objectification.

5. We have a victim blaming culture, even when it comes to sexting. When I do educational seminars about sex and technology with parents and teachers, I overwhelmingly hear stories of “sexting scandals”. Usually followed by a, “Why would she send a nude photo of herself in the first place? Something must be wrong with her.”

6. We need to redefine female sexual liberation.

7. We need to support girls to foster their own talents and abilities in multiple areas of life, and encourage boys to support them too.You don’t want your teen to sext? Try telling them not to do it. That didn’t work you say? Shocking. It’s important for parents of boys to acknowledge the pressure girls feel to prove they are sexy and to encourage them to recognize girls’ interests, talents and knowledge above their looks whenever possible. For parents of girls, it’s important to focus on their abilities and not just their looks or dress from a young age. It’s not that it is bad for teen girls to express sexuality, it’s just that we don’t want their only dose of daily self-esteem boost to come from a sexy selfie because her sexual worth is her only worth.

8. We need to hold boys and men accountable for their actions, they are capable of not acting on sexual impulses.

Despair, worries about the future and financial pressures are taking a toll on millions of young Britons, according to a poll which found young women in particular were suffering.

Low pay and lack of work in today’s Britain are resulting in “suspended adulthood”, with many living or moving back in with their parents and putting off having children, according to the poll of thousands of 18 to 30-year-olds.

Large numbers describe themselves as worn down (42%), lacking self-confidence (47%) and feeling worried about the future (51%).

Young women are being particularly affected. The percentage of women reporting that they lacked self-confidence was 54%, compared with 39% of young men.

While four in 10 young people said they felt worn down, the percentage for young women was 46% compared with 38% of men. One in three said they were worried about their mental health, including 38% of young women and 29% of young men.

Lord Laming’s review for the Prison Reform Trust has found that children in care are six times more likely to be cautioned by police or convicted of a crime than others of the same age. It is a national shame that we allow these young people to fill young offender institutions and prisons after spending so much money “taking care” of them throughout their childhoods.

Unlike in your average family home, kids in care are regularly criminalised by those caring for them: police are called out for incidents that happen to many teenagers but especially those who are harbouring pain and hurt from family breakdown, and exposure to violence and abuse. As a result children and teenagers are getting criminal records for throwing plates and smashing up their rooms, and other actions often regarded as domestic by the police called out to help manage such behaviour. But to the child in care, it’s often their first contact with the criminal justice system.

In my children’s home the police were regular visitors. I had police called on me for breaking windows, getting caught sniffing glue and fighting with other kids. By the time I was living independently at 15, I was well known to both probation and the police.

My argument has always been that if we got care right more often, lots of money could be saved – and lives too. But the problem with care is that too often it feels like we are just containing these kids. With so many moving between foster families, they often have no consistent positive adult in their lives. I have met kids who have had three social workers and eight foster placements, which often include school moves too. They have no one to walk alongside them as they navigate their life over a long period, no one to take a real interest in their long-term wellbeing.

In Germany they call them “smombies” – or smartphone zombies – people who are so caught up in their device they roam the streets oblivious to other people, traffic or rogue lamp posts.

Now this particular breed of tech junkie has been given special traffic lights — installed into the pavements — to help them avoid oncoming traffic.

Officials in Augsburg in the Bavaria region have built lights into the pavement at two tram stops in the city, The Localreports, which flash red when a tram is approaching or the normal lights turn red.

They’re designed to catch the eye of anyone craning their neck to get through that last Candy Crush level before they board and alert them when a relatively quiet trains approaching.

Tobias Harms from the city’s council told reporters:

“We realised that the normal traffic light isn’t in the line of sight of many pedestrians these days. So we decided to have an additional set of lights — the more we have, the more people are likely to notice them.”

Several pedestrians are said to have been hit by the trains while looking at their phones recently, and a 15-year-old was reportedly hit and killed after being distracted by her device in Munich in March.

There are currently 250 million children around the world living in countries affected by conflict, and half of the 19.5 million refugees globally are children. A new awareness campaign hopes to shine a light on them all — by focusing on one.

UNICEF Sweden has created “Sofia,” a 3D-animated child using 500 photos of real children from emergency areas. The images were provided by Getty Images, the campaign’s visual partner, and animators from the films Planet of the Apes and Avatar worked with creative agency Edelman Deportivo to bring her to life.

Per Westberg, deputy executive director of UNICEF Sweden, said in a statement.

“We have created Sofia to give a face to all the children that aren’t visible to us. Sofia is a symbol for all the orphan children, all the children that have been forced to leave their homes due to conflicts, who have stopped growing because of lack of nutrition and who dream of going to school.”

UNICEF decided to call the child Sofia because it was reported as the “most popular” name across the world last year.

The animation released this week marks the first of three videos in the organization’s #FörSofia spring campaign, according to Swedish news outlet Resumé.

“Meet Sofia,” the video opens. “She is the children that no one sees, in the disasters no one talks about. This is her story.”

While the video runs the risk of perpetuating an idea that there is a single refugee experience, the most compelling part is when Sofia says, “I’m not real. I’m the face of all the children suffering from emergencies no one talks about.”

Then, images of refugee children and those in conflict areas populate the screen.

In addition to awareness, the campaign aims to inspire people to become donors to UNICEF, as “world parents.”

Westberg said:

“Sofia is representing all the children you are helping when you are a world parent, UNICEF supports the children, through long-term development projects and through acute support when disasters occur. We are distributing our efforts according to needs, and the most exposed children will get help first.”

The Challenge

Hampshire County Council is asking for the views of service users, other stakeholders and members of the public, on a proposed new Family Support Service for families with children aged 0–19 years (or up to age 25 for young adults with learning difficulties and/or disabilities).

The theory of a 0-19 united service is a positive move, and one that has been developing over the last few years through the way professionals have been working closer together.

Worryingly though the proposal includes the closing of 43 Children’s Centres, and reducing the current staffing levels (currently 300 employees) for the Children’s Centres and the Early Help Hub by 60%.

The context is clearly driven by economic challenges: the County Council must meet a funding shortfall of £98 million by April 2017, and of this, the Council have decided that £21.5 million must be met from the Children’s Services budget. These proposals for changes to Children’s Centres and Early Help Hubs total £8.5 million of savings.

What are Children’s Centres & Early Help Hubs?

Introduced 17 years ago by the Labour government as Sure Start, children’s centres are designed to help parents in the community, providing a central hub for activities for under 5s, early education, health and family support. They have faced heavy cuts as a result of dwindling council budgets and hundreds have closed over the past five years, either by shutting down entirely or through mergers.

The Early Help Hub is a more recent innovation that came as a result of The Munro Review of Child Protection which argued a moral argument, a timing argument (now or never) to put right the problems in early years support; and an economic argument that early help hub was cost effective.

10 reasons we MUST keep Children’s Centres & Early Help Hubs

The high level of reach: In the New Forest East cluster of Children’s Centres reach 84.5% of children under the age of 5 (3,648 out of 4319 children) – these are children who engage with universal and targeted services (this is 12.1% above the Hampshire County Council average). Even in the most deprived area of the cluster (Cadland and Forest First Children’s Centre) 83.7% of families are reached with universal and targeted activities.

The support and development of parenting skills: over 4,600 parents in the last year across Hampshire had attended evidence-based parenting programmes such as PEEP, Positive Parenting Programme (Triple P) or Incredible Years in the last year.

The number of parents supported into work and education: Over 1,000 parents across Hampshire have been supported into work, education, training or volunteering by their local Children’s Centre.

The support and development of health lifestyles: 514 parents attended evidence based healthy lifestyle programmes such as Cook & Eat and Henry.

The increase in accessing Early Years education: the Children’s Centres have actively promoted the 2 year old offer, and by Autumn term 2015 78% of eligible children were taking up the free entitlement in Good or Outstanding settings. In the the area of highest deprivation in the cluster (Holbury and North Blackfield) there is an 84% take-up rate.

The support of parental health:research has shown using Children’s Centres in a consistent way predicted improved mental health outcomes for mothers later on, and taking children to organised activities (anywhere although Children’s Centres currently lead the way on under 5s provision) also predicted improved physical health outcomes for the mother. Most importantly the research showed that mothers who attended centres that were expanding services (in combination with no cuts to services) also showed improving mental health compared to mothers attending centres that experienced budget cuts and were reducing services.

The support for Child Protection: 100% of children on Child Protection Plans are known to the Children’s Centres through routine notification by the Social Care Team and a very large majority in the New Forest East cluster (88.4%) are actively engaged (10.7% higher than the Hampshire average).

The economic dangers: the National Audit Office states that it costs £33k to put a child into foster care, and £135k to put a child into residential care. All it takes is 258 children (23.45 children per District) taken into foster care or 63 children (5.7 children per District) taken into residential care for the whole of the £8.5m savings to be wiped out. Q1 of 2015 saw 2,073 children open to the Early Help Hub across Hampshire, of which 55% were stepped down from Child Protection and Child in Need plans and 45% were referred up from other agencies. If Early Help Hub services are dismantled how many more children and young people will end up on Child Protection plans?

The political damage: only a few months ago Hampshire County Council stated that “The 2015-18 Children’s & Young People’s Planwill continue to be underpinned by our commitment to early help for children, young people and their families, identifying as early as possible whether a child or family need support, enhancing parental capacity, helping them to access services, and working together to ensure this has maximum impact.” – is this just another example of a broken promise by politicians.

The voluntary sector cannot do anymore: running throughout the Hampshire consultation is the assumption that the voluntary sector will step in and run more universal and low-level targeted support. In the last year the voluntary sector has seen grants from Hampshire County Council shrink from £2.4m to £1.1m and yet they expect the voluntary sector to be able to increase their service capacity. In the New Forest Early Help Hub nearly 50% of cases are led and co-ordinated by members of the voluntary sector, again if there are 60% reductions in staffing who is going to be taking on the co-ordination of these cases?

Two-thirds of England’s children’s centres, more than 2,300, have had their budget cut in the past year, according to an annual census by the charity 4Children. These cuts follow four consecutive years of shrinking finances and means that almost a quarter report facing a highly uncertain future. More than half of the Children’s Centres who had experienced a cut said it would mean reductions to frontline services. Now, a further 130 centre sites are at risk of closure, according to the 4Children research.

Quotes from key leaders

Imelda Redmond, the charity’s chief executive, said:

“More than a million families use children’s centres. No other part of our national infrastructure offers the same opportunity to identify and address problems early; bring communities together and make public services work better for families.”

“Year on year reductions to children’s centre budgets are a real cause for concern. Our census shows that cuts are directly impacting on their abilities to reach out and support families. The trend towards targeting services on the most vulnerable risks missing those families who we would otherwise only see through universal services.”

The shadow Education Secretary, Lucy Powell, said:

“We’ve had nothing but broken promises from this Government on Sure Start. There are now 763 fewer centres since 2010 and services are withering on the vine in many areas.”

A DfE spokesperson said:

“We want to see strong children’s centres across the country, offering a wide range of local, flexible services, tackling disadvantage, and helping all children fulfil their potential. That is why we invested more than £2bn in early intervention last year.”

A damning report which revealed the full extent of the harm done by funding cuts to children’s centres was among more than 400 statements, documents and reports quietly released by the Government just before Christmas.

The final report was agreed in August, but the Department for Education (DfE), which commissioned it, quietly slipped it out on 17 December, along with hundreds of other statements, documents and reports.

The study is the most detailed ever conducted into the impact of children’s centres on the families who use them. The researchers examined 117 children’s centres in 2011 and 2013 – many of which may have been hit by further cuts since – and analysed interviews with more than 2,600 parents who used them, in order to calculate the impact the centres were having on families using different types of service.

I’m a big fan of libraries. I grew up regularly going into town to get out a wide range of books – especially biographies, sport and history books.

Hampshire Library Service, like so many others across the country, has been going through a review as part of the austerity measures. A paper on ‘Library Service Transformation â Strategy to 2020‘ is due to be considered at the Culture & Communities Select Committee on 22nd March.

More recently I’ve learnt that you can borrow up to 5 e-books and/or audio books for up to 14 days for free? You can download eBooks and eAudio books onto your ereader, desktop, laptop or mobile device using Overdrive.